Ireland (3 page)

As their numbers increased it became more difficult to find sufficient food to feed everyone just by hunting and gathering. At some point these people began to settle in one place. They built houses of wood and stone and began to cultivate the land and grow crops. They also built elaborate tombs in which to bury their dead, and these can still be seen today in many parts of Ireland.

When we look at a map of the world, Ireland looks terribly small and insignificant. We might think that it played little part in the history of the world. But we would be wrong. Ireland has played a significant part in world history. Again we know this from the evidence the people left behind.

In the 1930s a teacher, Patrick Caulfield, was cutting turf near Ballycastle, County Mayo. As he dug deep in the bog he uncovered lines of stones. Now you or I might not think this odd and ignore it. But Patrick Caulfield realised that someone must have placed those stones in regular lines. As they were deep beneath the bog and it takes thousands of years for a bog to grow, he realised that whoever had placed these stones in straight lines must have done so a very long time ago indeed.

Later, his son Seamus Caulfield investigated further. He was a very clever man and he devised a means of checking out all the lines of stones so he didn’t have to dig up thousands of acres of bog. Do you know what he did?

He got a long iron rod and marked if off in feet and inches. Then he walked through the bog pushing this rod into the soft peat. Whenever he struck stone he measured the depth on the rod and then placed a marker at the spot. Slowly he mapped out the lines of stones.

He realised that they were the remains of stone fences dividing off fields. Other stone formations he found were the remains of houses and other buildings. What lay beneath the bog was the remains of an ancient farming community. But how old was it? When had these people lived?

Scientists have many ways of dating old objects and measuring time. One method is carbon dating, which needs special instruments. A much more simple way is to count the rings in the cross-section of a tree. Each ring represents one year’s growth. Using many different methods, scientists were able to date the age of this settlement. They discovered that it was over 5,000 years old, one of the oldest and largest settled farming communities ever found anywhere in the world. Now do you see how important a part Ireland has played in the history of the world? And it’s not the only part. There is much, much more.

Were those people who lived in Ballycastle direct descendants of those who crossed over from Scotland? Are you and I descended from them? Right now, we don’t really know. Perhaps they were new settlers who came from Britain, or maybe from Europe, and perhaps we are descended from them.

One day we may really know. Scientists have developed a way of identifying our genes, which are a kind of chemical we have in our bodies. We get these genes from our parents who got them from their parents and so on. If scientists compared our genes with those of someone from thousands of years ago, they could tell if we were related. This science is called the science of DNA, and some day scientists will be able to trace our ancestors using DNA.

Then we will know whether our ancestors were those people who came from Scotland 9,000 years ago; or whether they were those people who built all those stone walls at Ballycastle; or whether we’re related to people who settled at Lough Gur, County Limerick about 5,000 years ago. Or perhaps our ancestors lived in County Meath and built one of the oldest and most amazing structures in the whole world – the great tomb at Newgrange.

O
ne of the things the first people who lived on the earth must have wondered about is what happens to us when we die. Even though they were primitive people, they realised that human beings possessed a spirit or soul. They believed that this spirit or soul continued to exist after a person died, and so they had a great respect and reverence for their dead. Because of this, they built gigantic tombs in which to place the bones or ashes of their loved ones.

One of the most magnificent tombs in Ireland, or anywhere in the world, is the great tomb at Newgrange. It’s called a passage-tomb because a passage, like a hallway, leads to a central chamber or room. The passage is built of gigantic standing stones, and is around 20 metres in length. It leads to the central chamber, which is also built of stone and has a massive stone roof. Even though it was built over 5,000 years ago, the roof is still intact and the chamber remains dry, which is a credit to the skills of those Stone Age builders. The complete structure is estimated to contain over 200,000 tonnes of stone. Can you imagine how much time, effort and hard work it must have taken to build?

The passage and central chamber were built first and were then covered over with stones and earth to create a flat-topped hill or mound. This mound is 11 metres high and has a diameter of 85 metres. Many of the stones used in the building have carvings on them, mostly spirals, and stones in the central chamber have carvings too. We do not know what these carvings mean; maybe they represent the sun, the moon or perhaps the stars. We do know that many ancient people worshipped the sun.

There is one more amazing testament to the skill and knowledge of the people who built the tomb. Above the entrance to the passage, there is a rectangular opening. When the tomb was discovered and excavated, this opening puzzled archaeologists. They could not figure out why it was there, or what purpose it served.

Now we know what purpose it serves. If you visit the tomb on the morning of 21 December – the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year – the sun’s rays shine through the rectangular opening, all the way down the long passage, to illuminate the central chamber. It is the only day in the year in which this event occurs.

The people who built Newgrange had no clocks or sophisticated scientific instruments like those we have today. Yet they were able to calculate, by observing the movement of the earth relative to the sun, when the winter solstice was. When they built their magnificent tomb they were able to calculate exactly where to place the central chamber, and how to line up the passage and that rectangular box so that the sun’s rays would light up the central chamber on the shortest day of the year. So these people were not only hard working, but extremely clever and intelligent.

We cannot be sure why they built the tomb so that the sun’s rays light up the inner chamber. Was it to symbolise that the spirits of their loved ones buried in the chamber still lived? Or did they wish to mark the moment when the days would begin to grow longer and brighter and they could soon plant their crops again? Whatever the reason, the construction of Newgrange is an extraordinary feat of knowledge, engineering and cooperation.

But it is not the only tomb in Ireland. There are over a thousand tombs in the country dating from those earliest times, most of them of four different designs. One is the passage-tomb like that at Newgrange. Another is the wedge tomb, and there are many of those in the south and west of Ireland. These tombs, also built of stone, are wider and taller at the front and narrower and lower at the rear. They resemble a wedge which is why they have that name.

Another type of tomb is the portal tomb or dolmen, which resembles a leaning, three-legged stool. It consists of two giant standing stones at the front and a smaller standing stone at the back. On top of these three stones is placed a gigantic flat stone, called a capstone. The capstone of one dolmen in County Wicklow weighs over 10,000 kilograms. Again, can you imagine how much effort it must have taken to lift that stone into place? We don’t know how it was done, but probably a ramp of stone and earth was built and the capstone was pulled up this ramp and over the three standing stones. Then the ramp was taken away. It must have taken many people and much time to do this, so we know that there were large groups of people living close to these tombs when they were built, and that they were willing to cooperate in building them.

The final type of tomb is the court tomb; most of these are in the northern part of Ireland. These tombs have huge stones forming a semi-circle at the entrance, which leads into a number of burial chambers.

Ashes and bones have been found in these tombs as well as objects like knives, axe heads and arrowheads, and objects carved from bone. They were probably placed there so that the spirits of those who had died could use them in the other world if they so wished. This was a common practice with the people who lived thousands of years ago, not only in Ireland, but elsewhere. In Egypt, the pharaohs were buried in gigantic tombs carved out of rock along with magnificent objects made of gold and precious stones. In fact the pyramids were built as tombs for pharaohs, just as Newgrange was built as a tomb for the important rulers of the people who built it. We know from those structures that the people revered their rulers and their dead, just as we still do today.

This is how we know how people lived in Ireland before anything was written down. We know they lived in communities in various parts of the island. The country was covered in forest so it would not have been possible to travel easily from one place to another. Rivers would have been one way of travelling; another would have been to sail around the coast. It is likely that there was little communication between the people living in different parts of the country. It is possible that those living along the coast had more contact with people living in Britain and Europe because they could travel across the sea by boat. We know there was trade between Ireland and Britain and between Ireland and Europe. Tools made from Irish flint have been found in Britain, while amber and pottery, which came from Europe, have been found in Ireland.

For the first 5,000 years, the people who lived in Ireland lived in the Stone Age. Then a great change came about. Man discovered metal. The Stone Age ended and the Bronze Age began.

T
he discovery of metal was a momentous event, not only in the history of Ireland, but also in the history of the world. As with many discoveries, we don’t really know how this happened. Perhaps stone containing copper was placed in a fire. The copper then melted and flowed out and hardened when it cooled. Some clever person must have realised that the material could be made into a tool.

The first metal tools were made of copper. And though copper is a soft metal and quite weak, nevertheless it has great advantages over stone. The melted copper could be poured into clay moulds made in the shape of knives, chisels, axe-heads, arrowheads, spearheads and tools. Once the copper hardened, the tool could be removed from the mould. Copper tools could also be resharpened, which was a huge advantage over stone or flint.

Then another discovery was made, which would really improve the quality of the metal. If you mix a small amount of tin with copper you create a new material, called bronze. This is a much harder and more durable metal than copper, and is of such importance that it gives its name to a period in history: the Bronze Age. It began about 4,000 years ago and ended about 2,500 years ago.

We don’t know if the people who lived in Ireland at that time discovered the secret of metal themselves, or whether that knowledge was brought to Ireland by others who came here. We do know that people, known as the Beaker People, came from Europe to Ireland at this time. They derive their name from a type of flat-bottomed beaker – a sort of cup – they made. Pottery, as you know, is made from fired clay and, like stone, does not rot. Some of this Beaker pottery, which has been found in Europe, has also been found in Ireland. So perhaps the Beaker People brought the secret of metal here.

During the Bronze Age, the climate in Ireland changed, and it became cold and wet. In these conditions, bog began to grow. We think that this is what happened at the Céide Fields and that it forced the people there to move away from the area. But bronze tools brought a huge advantage. With bronze axes, trees could be more easily cut down, providing more land on which to grow barley, oats and emmer, a type of wheat. This increase in the growing and harvesting of crops meant that communities became better off. But it brought its own problems. Communities now needed to defend themselves from enemies who might wish to take from them what they owned.

Communities used different means of defending themselves. They erected palisades – fences of hewn logs – around their villages, which were usually situated beside water. A regular supply of water was essential, so these villages were built near rivers or lakes. Sometimes, people built their house on an island in a lake and had a bridge linking the island to the surrounding land. The bridge could be taken up at night, or during an attack, thus preventing the attackers from reaching the house. If there was no island on the lake, the people constructed one with stones and rubble. These lake dwellings are called crannógs and one of the best-known crannógs in Ireland is at Lough Gur, County Limerick.

There is one other reason why people built near water – water is needed for cooking. Now you might think that they used metal pots filled with water in which to boil their meat. But they did not. Instead, they dug a square pit beside the water source, lined it with oak planks and filled it with water. They then lit a huge fire in which they heated stones. When the stones were hot, they were dropped into the pit and this caused the water to boil. When the water was boiling, meat wrapped in straw was hung from a wooden beam placed across the pit. Hot stones were added to keep the water boiling until the meat was cooked.